Thanks to “Jim Necroslaughter” we now have photos and a full report of the hessian slay-in that took place in Madison, Wisconsin, this past June 6th for International Day of Slayer:

Saturday June 6th, 2009, was a rainy, overcast day in Madison, Wisconsin. Appropriate for the Inter-National Day of Slayer, I suppose. While the rain may have deterred some people (flaky Madison liberals) from showing up that day, the proud few stuck out the rain from 10 AM to 4 PM at Library Mall, in the heart of downtown Madison.

Within 15 minutes of setting up, a random, street-urchin type, riding a bike, stopped by and offered me a hit off the glass pipe he had hidden in his hand – “this is the green, right here,” he said. In the right situation I would partake, but I figured this wasn’t the time or the place, so I passed. I found it funny that this was the first time in my life that a complete random offered me weed – in public, no less. The IDoS brings good karma I guess.

After about an hour, a completely unassuming 20-something year old, came up and asked me, “Is it REALLY the National Day of Slayer!?” We talked for 15 minutes about the best Slayer album (I told him South of Heaven), and metal, in general. I gave him a flyer and mentioned anus.com a few times. He was extremely fun to talk to – a balding, “conservatively” dressed young man that actually knew quite a bit about metal. He was really excited about the fact that it was the National Day of Slayer, and it was clear that he wasn’t taking the holiday as a joke or with a sense of irony.

At one point, early on, I remember two University of Wisconsin campus tours being forced to walk by us – haha! These tours are essentially for high-school kids and their parents who are trying to decide on where to go to college next fall. I’m pretty sure Reign in Blood was playing at that point – perfect!

The next person I remember talking to was a very old man. He was looking at our signs and came up to me and in a thick German accent, he said “June 6th is also D-Day.” I told him we knew that, and he told me a great story about how he was 14 and living in Nazi Germany on D-Day (so I guess that would make him 79, today). He asked me, “What is this ‘metal,’ is it the music you listen to?” I confirmed that it was, and I told him I also listen to classical. He asked me, who is your favorite composer? I told him Beethoven. He seemed very pleased with my answer, and said something to the effect of: “Beethoven makes you think that the entire universe was created just so that Beethoven could exist.” The old man was a pleasure to talk to, especially with Hell Awaits blasting in the background!

Let’s see. I remember an older woman (must have been 40) coming up and taking a flyer. I remember an older couple (around 40 or 50) coming up and hanging out for about 10 minutes – the wife seemed to know her Slayer pretty well, all things considered. A group of young African-American men and women stopped by for a few minutes and chatted us up, took a few flyers, and seemed pretty amused about the whole thing. There was a church about 100 yards away and sure enough, there was a wedding that day. A few of the groomsmen walked by at one point and raised a beer. At one point, I remember explaining to a man why Slayer was the perfect spokesband for metal – they are popular, but not total sell-outs, essentially. Nat’l Day of Darkthrone is too obscure, but Nat’l Day of Metallica is too HIV positive.

The best group of people that stopped by was a German family (more Germans!). They all had accents but they essentially spoke perfect English, I gathered that they live in America or visit it a lot. Anyway, the mom and dad stood back and had huge smiles on their face. The two sons and daughter were REALLY excited about our set-up! They said this was the best thing they had seen in months, they loved our signs (the daughter especially liked the “No Hipsters” sign), and took a bunch of pictures. We talked for probably 20 minutes; the one son really knew his black metal – he opened up his wallet and showed me his old I.D. from Deutschland. He said, “this was when I was 15 and had long hair – I used to be a sinner!” Pretty good line, I thought.

All in all I was pretty surprised at how we attracted a pretty diverse crowd – men, women, black, white, German, young, old, long hair, balding, street-urchins, groomsmen. At the end of the day, I realize that some people who stopped by probably thought we were being ironic, and to some extent, I know that we attracted some hipster-types. But I know I made some contact with some authentic people who will hopefully, ultimately, check out anus.com.

Improvements for next year:

– Red dye for the fountain in the middle of Library Mall.

– A goat chained to a tree

– A bigger/louder stereo!

And some pictures of the gathering (click to enlarge):

We at the Hessian Studies Center would like to congratulate the few, but brave ones that took this initiative for activism and showed local people that hessians are a group aware of themselves and that metal is a valid subculture. We also thanks Jim for his detailed report on the gathering and extend our kudos to the old man for his profound saying on Beethoven‘s music.

Metal, through its lyricism and imagery, and some might say, its feeling, tries in a very obvious way to link itself to the past, whether by telling the story of the armies that fought in World War II or by describing things that happened in a far more remote past time, like events so past us that they become almost mythical. Why is that? As previously commented on another post, metal not only is an alternative to modernity as a way to see and understand life, but its opposite. And that was intended from the very beginning…a rebellion towards what metal artists saw as a complacent world filled with domesticated robots disconnected from their environment. As a counterposition towards that mentality, heavy metal offers an inspired vision of how things were in a past when life was a lot more violent and rougher, and yet strangely, healthier for the challenges it offered daily. We can see that connection most obviously in heavy and speed/thrash metal, but the more compositionally advanced forms of extreme metal aren’t divorced from the idea either. In that approach there is a unique message implied, which is: by arriving to a materially advanced state of civilization in which life is safer, we’d actually done a devil’s bargain – we have completely moved away from doing things that may potentially be hurting and unsafe, unlike those times in which life was violent and challenging and yet, despite that, we lived in a state of connection with nature made by the very things that threatened us each day.

Most of the people living now don’t know how to make a fire or wield a sword because they don’t need to: we got gas ovens and professional armies now, which are certainly great things to have in this modern age, no doubt, but the problem lies in that we have skewed challenges altogether expecting that everything be given to us in a silver platter. In other words: we have domesticated ourselves, and in the process we have lost a part of our souls. Suddenly, life no longer has meaning besides getting new things to make ourselves happy and more comfortable. That’s what metal is against, and by rescuing the past it tries to give us lessons, like a grandfather telling a story of his own childhood in order to communicate an experience we young people might find usable. In the same way, metal gives us, red-blooded people with a thirst for life and challenge, an alternative view to the conformism we see everyday around us.

Along the black mountainside scattered
By the campfires awaiting the dawn
Two times a hundred men in battles
Tried by the steel in the arrow axe and the sword

By battle worn hunger torn awaiting
For the sun to break through the cold haze
And for the banners of Ebal to appear
On the hill in the suns first warm rays

The elder among the men looked deep into
The fire and spoke loud with pride
Tomorrow is a fine day to die

– A Fine Day To Die, Bathory

Lyrics like the above evoke awful images to most people, but for the hessian, beneath the death, the blood and the fighting, there is a quest for glory and self-improvement and, as modern day warriors, we are able by listening and understanding the music to feel a part of the rush that ancient warriors must have felt. Bands like Manowar, Motörhead, Bolt Thrower, Omen, Dio and, of course, Iron Maiden have brought the past to the table many times for that reason, and many bands have made entire careers out of it. They evoke a time we want to revive in our hearts for daily inspiration. Yet, as romantic our souls may be, we don’t want to repeat the errors of the past as much as we don’t want to screw things up as badly as modern peoples. And this is why metal also takes the idea of evocation further by exploring the mythical world of fantasy. But that’s another topic. In the meantime, let us hessians rescue the past, both through music and books and learn from it so we can be the ancient men of the modern ages. The past lives on us!

Today, June 6th, is International Day of Slayer. Many dedicated people, among them the fearsome IDoS task force, have worked to make this event the biggest yet.

You may ask, if interested (and damn you if you’re not), what can one do to celebrate and fully enjoy this day? Easy: by incommodating your parents/neighbours/girlfriend/dog all day long, playing your favorite Slayer(s) album(s) at maximum volume.

But I feel that what’s been said is enough, and we shall preach no more. Today, blast yer speakers through the boundaries of hell!

In the study high music test scores were significantly associated with creative functions in music (p< .0001), suggesting composing, improvising and arranging music demands musical aptitude. Creativity is a multifactorial genetic trait involving a complex network made up of a number of genes and environment. Here was shown for the first time that the creative functions in music have a strong genetic component (h2 =.84; composing h2 =.40; arranging h2 =.46; improvising h2 = .62) in Finnish multigenerational families. Additionally the heritability estimates of the musical aptitude were remarkable.

To elucidate the neurobiological basis of music in human evolution and communication the researchers demonstrated an association of arginine vasopressin receptor 1A (AVPR1A) gene variants with musical aptitude. In the previous studies the AVPR1A gene and its homologies have been associated with social, emotional and behavioral traits, including pair bonding and parenting. The results suggest that the neurobiology of music perception and production is related to the pathways affecting intrinsic attachment behavior.

“Music is social communication between individuals,” says Liisa Ukkola. “Darwin proposed that singing is used to attract the opposite sex. Furthermore, lullabies are implied to attach infant to a parent and singing or playing music together may add group cohesion. Thus, it is justified to hypothesize that music perception and creativity in music are linked to the same phenotypic spectrum of human cognitive social skills, like human bonding and altruism both associated with AVPR1A. We have shown for the first time in the molecular level that music perception has an attachment creating impact.”

In more layman terms: ability in music, meaning not just technical skill but creativity and general talent at composing and improvising, is determined mostly by the genes. Not just that, it is also claimed that music making is intimately related with the human traits associated with bonding and communication with other human beings: we use music to transmit to each other ideas so complex that we would be unable to convey with speaking or gestures and do so because we care about communicating those ideas to the world.

All of this data makes one thinks twice about supporting each and every band that comes our way. Not everyone can be an artist and create great, transcendental works, so why should we keep encouraging participation in the metal scene when we can be more concerned about quality and not quantity?

From the arid deserts infested with scorpions and snakes to the liberal cities and more conservative rural ranches, Texas carries the memory of the American frontier, the spirit of man against overwhelming odds; an age when harmony with nature determined survival. In the 80′s groundbreaking bands such as DRI, Helstar, Watchtower, Ripper and Necrovore created both musical and aggressive anti-normal metal that gave foundations for genres such as progressive metal, thrash and death metal. In the 90′s, the sceptre was mostly carried by death metal influenced black metal bands Absu, Averse Sefira and Thornspawn. Just as the Texas scene seemed to have quieted down in keeping with the hipsterization of metal, the last two years have shown many new promising acts to arise: the occult metal of Dagon, the hyperactive metal/punk crossover of Birth A.D. and the demonic and subliminal Blaspherian. While all of these are formally very much crafted according to the rules of subgenres established by the previous degenerations, their no-nonsense attitude and direct, perceptual spirit in the creation of insistent, spontaneous and un-commercial metal artifacts deserves nothing but applause.

While the basics of black metal and death metal were mostly laid down in the basements, clubs and rehearsal rooms of USA and Europe, the interest in morbid and extreme metal that mirrored the chaotic world, the hypocrisy of religion and the evil of politics which exist regardless of where you live, was inevitably spread to farthest reaches of Western youth culture: the alleys of the mega-city of Singapore and the hot shores surrounded by slums in Latin American lands. Key bands such as Sarcofago and Sepultura from Brazil and Impiety from Singapore, cranking out satanic, unhinged, delirious forms of early death metal and thrash, were reciprocally a tremendous shock and inspiration to underground metal fans in USA and Europe of the late 80′s and influenced a complete transformation of attitude in underground black metal from Mayhem to Beherit, leading to the so called second wave of black metal. As information about these phenomena outside the centres of main black and death metal culture is often scarce because of a lack of mainstream interest, social and language barriers etc. it is indispensable to have this kind of phenomenal resources and articles where to study it from:

Cliff Burton was not just an easy going, long haired maniac with a superior compositional talent and one hell of a bass player, he was also fond of nature and of centuries-old european music, sported bell-bottomed trousers long since it stopped being fashionable to do so (usually justifying his taste in clothing with “this is what I wear, fuck you”) and was the true creative leader of the world’s most known speed metal band, Metallica.

To remember this exceptional musician, here are some Cliff-related videos for you to enjoy.

Metallica’s classically influenced track “Orion”:

A rare 1984 interview with Cliff (not so rare now since it’s on YouTube):

Musicians are basically storytellers, like writers are. In literature, great works are deemed so not just for their superior arrangement of elements (i.e. how “beautiful” or “organized” a certain piece is), but by how well they tell a central message or idea which the artist tries to communicate to his audience.

Putting aside the need to earn a living, I think there are four great motives for writing, at any rate for writing prose. (…) They are:

1. Sheer egoism. Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on the grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood, etc., etc. (…)

2. Æsthetic enthusiasm. Perception of beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right arrangement. (…)

3. Historical impulse. Desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity.

4. Political purpose.—Using the word ‘political’ in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other peoples’ idea of the kind of society that they should strive after. Once again, no book is genuinely free from political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.

In the above quote, the english author George Orwell indicates that writers have a special urge to fulfill their purpose, which also goes with a kind of appreciation for aesthetics that surpasses the experience of most people. All of that concentrated towards a goal: to express thoughts that go beyond the individual, a concern towards society or the world as a whole.

In an interview with another famous writer, Aldous Huxley, we can find a similar notion:

Interviewer: What would you say makes the writer different from other people?

Huxley: Well, one has the urge, first of all, to order the facts one observes and to give meaning to life; and along with that goes the love of words for their own sake and a desire to manipulate them. It’s not a matter of intelligence; some very intelligent and original people don’t have the love of words or the knack to use them effectively.

Both views could be summed up to 1) writers wish to satisfy a personal urge towards creating beauty and 2) through their art, they share their vision on life, the world and its direction.

Music, like literature, also focus on expressing ideas, but in a different language and with a similar care for aesthetics, or how well the elements expose that idea.

Metal is no exception:

This isn’t something we do to pay the bills, it’s not a job and it’s not a chore, its something we are truly passionate about. It is something that each one of us needs in our lives, because without it, our lives would have a huge void. It’s very hard to convey this feeling to some people, but it is like a drug, a powerful driving force that we enjoy following year after year, record after record. So this is what kills complacency, our love for what we do and our passion and drive to move it forward and improve on it.

(…)

Well, I really can’t speak for anyone else, but I would imagine and would like to think musicians use their music to express their thoughts and feelings, whether it be on religion, or just their take on the world. For us, Death Metal was the perfect vehicle for conveying our feelings, sometimes angry, bitter and sad, but ultimately to express ourselves through the music.

I don’t think musicians sharing similar views will necessarily create the same types of music, because music is an individual thing and it is personal. Our music is very aggressive and powerful with a lot of heaviness, dark melodies, and very haunting at times, and this certainly reflects what the lyrics are saying. Some bands do have something to say in their music that is real and will make people think, other bands like to go in a different direction and create lyrics that are fantasy, pure entertainment for the listener, which is also fine, and we have also incorporated some of this to drive home our point on some occasions, but I think for the most part we fall into the first category.

We usually have something to say, and we don’t like to be preachy about it, but we like to present it in such a way that it does paint a bleak picture, and I think this certainly drives home the point quicker once you understand what the point of the song is. This genre definitely has a culture AND a philosophy all of its own.

For hessians, metal is beauty and order expressed in the language of fury and noise. The best works in the genre were created by people who are artists by nature, like Orwell and Huxley were and musicians like Ross Dolan are. Not everyone can become an artist and that’s why any form of art that encourages participation above all gets swamped into mediocrity.

Knowing that, hessians should think twice before giving their approval towards anything that comes their way. Be more critical. Some tips regarding that will appear in a future post.